Afghan election officials 'corrupt'

Afghan electoral officials are corrupt and working to keep Hamid Karzai in power, the leading opposition candidate in the presidential elections has said.

By Ben Farmer in Kabul

3:36PM BST 10 Sep 2009

Abdullah Abdullah said the Independent Election Commission (IEC) was helping to rig the ballot for the incumbent and such a fraudulent vote would lead to instability.

He outspoken remarks came as a United Nations-backed election complaints watchdog ordered results from 83 polling stations to be cast out because of vote rigging.

Preliminary results from the August 20 poll show it is a near mathematical certainty Hamid Karzai has crossed the 50 per cent threshold needed for first round victory, unless large numbers of his votes are annulled for fraud.

The Karzai-appointed IEC has been accused of failing to vet votes for blatant rigging.

Dr Abdullah said: "It's not independent at all. It's on President Karzai's side. It has been corrupt, and their malpractice is now widespread.

"It's not for the good of the country that somebody who commits massive fraud rules the country for five years," he told the BBC.

Mr Karzai has 54.1 per cent of votes counted and Dr Abdullah 28.3 per cent after nearly 92 per cent of polling stations were tallied.

Pre election polls suggested Mr Karzai was the favourite, but the scale of his lead has caused widespread suspicion.

Full preliminary results are expected on Saturday.

The scale of fraud and Dr Abdullah's uncompromising stance has alarmed the international community which sees a credible poll as key to making progress in Afghanistan.

The Electoral Complaints Commission is sifting through 2,800 complaints about rigging and issued its first orders to throw out results in Kandahar, Paktika and Ghazni provinces.

It has already called for recounts where suspiciously high numbers of voters turned out.

Opponents have complained intimidation, ballot-box stuffing and "ghost" polling stations have delivered huge numbers of votes for the president.

A US election monitoring group said "large numbers of polling stations" had more than 100 per cent turnout.

The National Democratic Institute said it would be "impossible to determine the will of the Afghan people," unless rigging complaints were investigated.